Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy calls UAE's $500M World Liberty investment "brazen corruption" and demands DOJ probe for potential Emoluments violations.

Senator Murphy Warns of 'Criminal Conduct' in UAE-Trump Deal

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy escalated congressional scrutiny of the Trump family's cryptocurrency venture on Sunday, calling the UAE's $500 million investment in World Liberty Financial "brazen, open corruption" and warning the arrangement may constitute "potentially criminal conduct" requiring immediate Justice Department investigation.

Murphy's allegations came one day after the Wall Street Journal published documents revealing that UAE national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan secretly purchased a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial through Aryam Investment on January 16, 2025—just four days before Donald Trump's second inauguration. The deal sent $187 million directly to Trump family-controlled entities, $31 million to the family of Steve Witkoff (Trump's current Special Envoy to the Middle East and World Liberty co-founder), and another $31 million to other co-founders.

"This is not normal business activity," Murphy said in a statement issued Sunday evening. "This is a foreign government official paying hundreds of millions of dollars directly to the president's family mere days before he assumes power, followed by immediate policy reversals that benefit that same foreign official's strategic business interests. That's the definition of corruption, and it may well be criminal."

Murphy emphasized the sequence of events documented by the Journal: the $500 million investment on January 16; Trump's inauguration on January 20; a March 2025 White House meeting between President Trump, Witkoff, and Sheikh Tahnoon; and the May 2025 announcement of a framework allowing UAE to purchase 500,000 advanced Nvidia AI chips annually—a direct reversal of Biden administration policy that had blocked such transfers on national security grounds.

Under the approved framework, 100,000 of those chips—20% of the total—were allocated specifically to Sheikh Tahnoon's AI company G42, which US intelligence had previously flagged for potential ties to Chinese military and surveillance programs. The Biden administration had explicitly denied Sheikh Tahnoon's requests for AI chip access throughout 2023 and 2024, citing concerns about technology diversion and G42's business relationships with entities linked to China's military-civil fusion programs.

Murphy joins Senator Elizabeth Warren in demanding congressional hearings and Justice Department investigation. Warren, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee's Democratic caucus, called the arrangement "corruption, plain and simple" and said "Congress needs to grow a spine and put a stop to Trump's crypto corruption."

The senators are citing potential violations of multiple federal laws, most prominently the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which prohibits federal officials from accepting "any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State" without congressional consent. Legal scholars have debated whether payments to family-controlled businesses before inauguration violate this clause, but the timing—four days before taking office—and the subsequent policy reversals favoring the payer create what ethics experts describe as an extraordinarily clear case.

Additionally, Murphy referenced the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits US officials from accepting anything of value in exchange for official acts. While the FCPA typically applies to bribes paid by US entities to foreign officials, some legal scholars argue the statute's anti-corruption principles could be invoked when foreign officials make payments to US officials in exchange for policy decisions.

The White House issued denials similar to those provided to the Wall Street Journal. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said, "President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public. There are no conflicts of interest," adding that Trump's assets are held in a trust managed by his children. David Wachsman, a spokesman for World Liberty Financial, told reporters that Trump and Witkoff had no involvement in the deal and haven't been involved in the company since taking office.

Legal and ethics experts contacted by multiple news outlets disputed these defenses. Richard Painter, former chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, told CNN that the arrangement represents "one of the clearest violations of the Emoluments Clause I've seen in my career" and that the trust structure offers no meaningful protection when the president's children are both managing the trust and signing deals with foreign governments days before inauguration.

Former Representative Tom Malinowski warned that if a future administration determines the payments constituted acts of corruption, individuals involved could face sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act, including asset freezes and travel bans. "This is exactly the type of conduct the Magnitsky Act was designed to address—government officials using their positions to enrich themselves through corrupt arrangements with foreign powers," Malinowski said.

The scandal has created unusual political dynamics. While most congressional Republicans have remained silent, some former Trump administration officials privately told reporters the UAE deal crosses lines that previous presidential business arrangements did not. The combination of foreign government involvement, the proximity to inauguration, and the direct policy quid pro quo creates a fact pattern that even Trump allies find difficult to defend publicly.

For the crypto industry, already reeling from Bitcoin's crash below $76,000 and $111 billion in market cap losses, the corruption allegations add regulatory uncertainty and reputational damage. World Liberty Financial's USD1 stablecoin—which was used to settle Sheikh Tahnoon's separate $2 billion Binance investment in March 2025—now carries the taint of being the financial instrument in what multiple senators are calling potentially criminal corruption.

Whether Murphy's allegations lead to formal investigations remains uncertain given Republican control of the Justice Department. Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Trump loyalist, has shown no inclination to investigate the administration's activities. However, the political pressure from high-profile senators, the documentary evidence published by the Wall Street Journal, and the stark timeline of investment-followed-by-policy-reversal create conditions where institutional pressure for investigation may build regardless of partisan considerations.

The scandal also raises broader questions about crypto's role in facilitating opaque financial arrangements between politically connected actors. The ease with which World Liberty's stablecoin was used to settle a $2 billion transaction involving the same UAE royal who owns 49% of the stablecoin issuer illustrates how digital assets can enable complex, difficult-to-trace flows of capital that evade traditional oversight mechanisms.

As Bitcoin continues its descent—now trading below the $76,037 average cost at which Strategy accumulated its holdings—the collision of crypto speculation with geopolitical corruption allegations represents perhaps the industry's most serious reputational crisis since FTX's collapse. Whether congressional investigations materialize or the allegations fade into partisan gridlock will likely influence regulatory approaches to crypto for years to come.